


Eyes On The Stars

by InSpiteOfAllTheHeartaches



Series: A Small Life [3]
Category: Newsies!: the Musical - Fierstein/Menken
Genre: Adoption, Canon Era, Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, F/M, Family, Fluff, Grief/Mourning, Married Life, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-15
Updated: 2021-03-23
Packaged: 2021-03-24 03:02:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 19,436
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30065670
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InSpiteOfAllTheHeartaches/pseuds/InSpiteOfAllTheHeartaches
Summary: “I likes the name. Little Wanderers. Sounds like a kids’ baseball team.”“We are not adopting enough for our own baseball team, Jack, before you even suggest it.”“But think o’ the fun, Ace –“"Not a chance."Six years after their marriage, Jack and Katherine decide it's time. They're going to adopt. Things, however, are rarely so simple. Sequel to my fic A Small Life, with major spoilers for that story.
Relationships: David Jacobs/Original Female Character(s), Jack Kelly/Katherine Plumber Pulitzer
Series: A Small Life [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2119809
Comments: 51
Kudos: 18





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is a sequel to my fic A Small Life. If you haven’t read that, please go ahead and do so [here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28312206?view_full_work=true) before reading this. For those of you who have already read A Small Life, here’s your refresher: Katherine has a burn on her face from the Pulitzer mansion fire of 1900; Jack and Katherine got married in August 1900; Katherine miscarried a baby girl which they named Lucy in the December of 1900, which left her infertile, so they decided to adopt. Five years on, they decide to take the plunge.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some racist language is used in this chapter, merely because it is important to characterisation and period-appropriate. I DO NOT condone the use of such language. Please see the end notes for historical details. 
> 
> I'm sorry that my writing is shitty in this chapter, but comments make my days brighter so please do leave them :)

**July, 1906**

Jack has a picture in his head of what orphanages are supposed to look like. This is decidedly not it.

See, he’d been in and out of his fair share of orphanages before he managed to find work as a newsie and none of them looked like this. The orphanages that he remembers were dark, low buildings shrouded in the smog of the city and infested with rats, hidden away in the slums, occupied only by the children too young to escape them. Mrs. Ellis, their neighbour in the tenements before his father died, gave him the address of one of them and he took her up on it, making his way there with only the clothes on his back. He spent all of two weeks there before he was beaten and kicked out onto the street for taking an extra slice of bread at the dinner table. Apparently, such orphanages have been done away with now, though they were never legal in the first place, according to Katherine.

This orphanage is very much the opposite. This orphanage is made of red brick, a beautiful four-storey townhouse with neat, white-painted windows and freshly scrubbed steps leading up to the front door. Beside the door is a brass plate, which announces its name: _The Howard Mission and Home for Little Wanderers._

“I likes the name. _Little Wanderers_.” Jack turns to Katherine as they come to a stop on the pavement in front of the building. “Sounds like a kids’ baseball team.”

“We are not adopting enough for our own baseball team, Jack, before you even suggest it.” Katherine glances up at him, amused.

Jack grins back at her. “But think o’ the fun, Ace –“

“Not a chance. One is quite enough for now, thank you very much.” She cuts him off, laughing, but it’s only half a joke, and they both know it. They both know that, given half a chance, Jack would be breaking the whole lot of these children out of the orphanage and spending their life savings on feeding and clothing them. So, she squeezes his hand, a gentle reminder. “Remember what we talked about?”

“Yeah, I know.” He sighs, his free hand coming up to scratch at the back of his neck. “I jus’… I can’t bear thinkin’ o’ them growin’ up here, y’know?”

“I know. And I know this is going to be difficult, but we’ll get through it together.” When he doesn’t look at her, Katherine takes hold of his shoulders and turns him toward her. “We’re going to change a child’s life, you and me.”

With that, she leans up and kisses him – wholly inappropriate, they’re in the middle of a public pavement, but they’ve never really gone in for propriety – before they make their way up the steps.

On the door is a brass door-knocker which Katherine raises and lowers three times in smart succession. Jack shifts his weight from one foot to another. In the last couple of years, they’ve had to attend rather more high-society functions than he’s entirely comfortable with, what with their careers taking off and reconnecting with the Pulitzers – for better or worse. None of them have brought him any closer to feeling at ease in such situations, where he has to be buttoned up and proper and play down his accent. His only comfort is that Katherine, who grew up doing such things, hates them just as much as he does. Still, she looks so much more at home than he does in the fashionable clothes they’ve had to wear today in order to look like the kind of people who deserve to adopt a child. He’s fitted himself into his best suit, the one that he wears for exhibition openings and Katherine’s live readings of her novels, but he drew the line at the stupid bowler hat she’d tried to persuade him to wear. He’s not giving up his newsboy cap anytime soon, thank you very much. Katherine looks as pretty as ever, even if she is done up in the fripperies expected of her and wearing the fancy hat (that he _knows_ she hates as much as he does) which is large enough to smother a small dog.

The door is opened by a tall woman, spindly, dressed in a high-necked, bottle-green skirt suit. She blocks their entrance, pushing her circular, wire-framed glasses a little up her protrusion of a nose and glaring at them from behind the lenses in a way that could wither an evergreen.

“Can I help you?” Her voice is as grey as a rainy Tuesday afternoon.

“Yes, we’re the Kellys.” Katherine replies. “I booked an appointment.”

“Ah. Come in.” The woman stands aside to let them into the hallway, which is painted a light shade of coral and entirely void of children. It’s honestly slightly disturbing, this liminal space, and it sends a shiver down Jack’s spine. “You said on the telephone that you were looking for a baby?”

“That’s correct.”

“Boy or girl?”

“We ain’t bothered.”

They’ve discussed it at length, the two of them, curled in their armchair before the fire, and decided that their only criteria is that they want a baby. Even that is pretty arbitrary and mostly because Katherine wants the experience that they never got to have with Lucy of pushing a pram and spoon-feeding and changing diapers. Jack is less bothered, he just wants a kid that’s theirs, no matter whether it’s two months old or ten years. It’s surprised him, honestly, how much he wants a kid. He’s always wanted children, a family, of course, but he thought he’d be terrified. His father was never exactly a good role model for what a father ought to be, after all, and on this, like most things, Jack’s flying by the seat of his pants. But he’s not scared, not with Katherine by his side. He’s just excited.

“We have a number of babies here at the moment.” The woman says, reaching for a little panel by the door and ringing a small brass bell. “Mary will show you around.”

With that, the woman disappears down the hall and through one of the doors into a room. In the split-second that her slim frame slips through the crack between the door and its frame, Jack catches a glimpse of children, eerily silent, rowed up behind desks with their heads bent down. It makes his stomach turn over. He knows, of course, that it’s a good thing that the children are getting an education, goodness knows he’d have given his right arm for one himself. But it seems odd to have them be so silent. Children are supposed to be laughing and playing and running around. At least, he supposes, they’re not labouring anywhere, or somewhere like the Refuge.

“Are you alright, my love?” Katherine asks, squeezing his hand. Jack realises that he’s been drumming the restless fingers of his free hand against his thigh, and forces them to curl in towards his palm.

“Jus’ fine.” He offers her a small smile. “Bad memories, ‘s all.”

In response, Katherine presses herself a little closer into his side, letting him wrap an arm around her waist. Jack closes his eyes and breathes through his nose, deep, heavy breaths, focusing in on the warmth of Katherine against him, the smell of her perfume around him. He’s fine. She’s here. So he’s fine.

He opens his eyes at the creak of the stair to see a woman, a maid, perhaps forty and with all the trappings of a well-fed middle age, hurrying down to meet them. “Hello sir, ma’am.”

“Hello, you must be Mary?” Katherine smiles.

“‘S right, ma’am. Right this way.”

She leads them up the stairs and Jack realises exactly what is going on here. There’s a door at the top of the stairs and walking through it is like stepping from this surreal, picture-postcard orphanage into the pictures in his head. Behind the door the paint is peeling and cots are tucked up against the walls of the corridor, snot-nosed children exercising their lungs from within them.

Once, three years ago, Katherine dragged him to the music hall on 34th street to watch this film with a French title about the passion of the Christ. He’d nearly jumped out of his skin when the angel had first appeared on the screen out of nowhere, but, as they walked home that evening, Katherine had told him that it wasn’t the angel that made this moving picture so important, but the colour. She’d told him that it was the future, these films in full colour, not the black and white ones. (Jack still thinks the black and white ones are pretty spectacular, but he’s also still impressed every time hot water comes out of the tap at home, so he’s not exactly well up on these things.) Walking through the door at the top of the orphanage stairs feels like walking from a full colour moving picture into a black and white one, like all the hope hanging in the air has been magicked away the same way the angel disappeared. This is the kind of orphanage that Jack knows.

Mary leads them up a further two flights of stairs and into a room in the eaves. Inside are rows upon rows of grey, dusty cribs, each one containing a small child. If they aren’t asleep, they are silent, strangely so. Katherine leads Jack to wander between the rows, peering in at each small, grubby infant.

“Why are they so quiet?” She whispers to him as they pass pair after pair of dull, glassy eyes.

“They’ll be ignored or beaten ‘f they cry.” Jack shrugs. “Kids learn fast.”

It’s only when he looks down to see Katherine staring at him in horror that he realises that perhaps this isn’t the norm. Of course, he sort of knew that, in the back of his mind, sort of knew that if baby Katherine had cried then it would have been mere moments before she were picked up and rocked back to sleep by a nanny, a nanny who would never have dreamed of giving her a good slap for the racket she was making. But it’s a different thing to see it written across her face, the shock of knowing and the privilege of not knowing before. He’s not unaffected by it himself, naturally; he wants to scoop up each child and sprint out the door with them. But he knows this horror well. All horrors become comfortable if you live them long enough.

Katherine lowers her eyes and mutters: “Just one child, remember?”

“Which o’ us is you tryna convince?” Jack mutters back.

Her eyes flick up to meet his and see her own pain echoed there. “Both. I just-“

“I know.” Jack pulls her a little closer.

They look at each little boy and girl, wrapped in ragged, mismatched blankets. Katherine feels salt sting the corners of her eyes; Jack feels bile rise in his throat.

“You provide a matching service, is that right?” Katherine finally asks, turning to Mary.

“Yes, ma’am.” The woman nods, almost demure in her servitude. It hits Jack all at once that they are somehow the ones with power here, though how exactly that came about he isn’t entirely certain. “‘F you ain’t sure which one you want then the reverend can help find yours.”

“That sounds good, sweetheart, don’ it?” Jack squeezes his wife a little closer. “Don’ feel right to pick, somehow?”

She smiles up at him. “That’s just what I was thinking.”

“If you’ll jus’ come with me, then, an’ I’ll take you to the reverend’s office.”

Mary opens the door once more and almost trips over a huddle of children who are engaged in a rather rowdy game of snap. There are perhaps six or seven of them, all different ages, clothed in grubby pinafores or patched short-trousers, seated in a circle.

“No playin’ in the corridor!” Mary bellows from above them, swiping at the closest little girl’s flyaway crested braid and giving it a vicious tug.

The children scatter like a game of marbles, skittering off in every direction. Jack glances at Mary’s hands, the way that they’re tough and reddened from years of hard work. Those are the kind of hands that would hurt, he knows, if they were to hit you, at least for a woman. He recalls a hundred sets of hands like that from his own childhood, the kind of hands the nuns of the lodgehouse used to have. Mary, he thinks, would not shy away from using them to land a slap across the face of a child with a smart mouth.

Only one child remains, a little boy, probably a year or so old, who is unsteady on his feet as he wanders over to collect the abandoned cards, seizing upon his chance for a few moments with the toy, having been previously excluded from the older children’s games. And then he looks up at them.

He’s a lean little thing, with deep olive skin the pigment of which does little to hide the enormous birthmark that stretches over his right cheek and up to his eye. It’s what some people might call a port wine stain, though Jack doesn’t know what port wine looks like when it stains something. Port wine is a luxury he has never really been able to afford. His heart immediately twinges in sympathy for the kid. Something like that gets you picked on whether you’re in an orphanage or not.

The boy looks up at Katherine with these enormous dark eyes and points up at her face. “Snap.”

He wanders over, then, and fists one grubby little hand in the navy folds of Katherine’s skirt and tugs insistently. Mary’s face twists into something horrified and she jumps forward to crack one of those reddened hands across the boy’s arm. She doesn’t even come close, Katherine taking hold of the child on instinct and tucking him against her skirt as she fixes Mary with a stare that could curdle coffee.

“It’s quite alright.” She says coolly, then crouches down, skirt pooling across the floor in a way that holds the boy’s gaze. The fabric ripples across the floorboards, loose and flowing like seafoam, and he’s mesmerised by it, only looking back up at Katherine when she speaks to him. “What were you trying to tell me, my love?”

The boy blinks before stroking a tiny, feather-soft finger across Katherine’s cheek, tracing the line of a long-healed scar. “Snap.”

“Oh!” A bright smile spreads across her face, one that damn near knocks Jack off his feet. He’s used to her smiles, by now, has catalogued them in his mind and knows them all well, which emotions they betray. But he’s never seen her use that smile, a smile usually reserved only for him, in any kind of conversation that remotely involves her scar. “That’s right, we do match. Aren’t you so clever?”

She glances up at Jack, then, still smiling, and he just _knows._ Sure, they’d said a baby, no older than six months, if they could help it, and this kid has to be two or three times that. But he’s theirs. He’s got to be. Jack might have to squint long and hard at ink on paper to read those words, but he can read his wife as easy as breathing.

“Hey, kid.” Jack crouches down next to Katherine, lowering his voice a little so as not to scare the boy. To his credit, he looks Jack right in the eye, entirely fearless in a way that surprises him. “‘S your name, hm?”

The boy frowns. “Dan-yul.”

Katherine glances up at where Mary is standing over them, watching the interaction with something between puzzlement and disapproval. “Is Daniel here in the process of being adopted already?”

“O’ course not, ma’am,” Mary laughs, a sound like the dark treacle she bakes with, “nobody wants a deformed one, not at this age. He’ll do to go out for labour when he’s a bit older though, I’ll wager.”

 _Deformed?_ Katherine looks at Jack and he nods, almost imperceptibly. She gets to her feet, smoothing down her skirt, and fixes Mary with another searing look. “We’d like to speak to someone about adopting him.”

Mary looks at them as if Katherine has requested an audience with the president himself, but eventually gathers herself enough to lead them back downstairs and into a spacious study with a white moulded fireplace. On its mantelpiece is a box of chocolates, the expensive kind with fondant fillings inside that Jack and Katherine get from her family at Christmastime, adorned with a gift tag. Jack wonders whether the man behind the desk gives them to the children who have been good, whether he knows only the neat, studious children downstairs and remains blissfully unaware of the squalor above.

The man behind the desk rises when they enter and his height catches Jack a little off guard, with the man being a couple of inches taller than him. He’s probably about six foot four or six foot five, and it’s unnerving. Height is a good advantage in a fight, even if this man must be in his seventies. Still, he shakes their hands and greets them, inviting them to seat themselves in the plush armchairs on their side of the desk. He’s not smiling at them by any means, but he doesn’t look wholly disapproving, so Jack forces himself to relax and take in his surroundings.

The office is furnished in a manner that is quietly expensive, enough to impress, not enough to arouse suspicion. It reminds Jack of the office that Snyder used to front the Refuge, carefully constructed so as not to betray the enormous sums he reaped from the cheap labour the convicted boys provided. Snyder got cocky though, towards the end, a little more ostentatious, with marble pineapples bookending his mantelpiece and costly cigars inside a velvet lined box on the desk. Jack’s eyes flick to the box of chocolates. He gives it three years before this office goes the same way.

They exchange pleasantries with the man, who introduces himself as Reverend Plumb, the principal of the home. It takes Jack a moment to place him, but he eventually lands on the reason for the odd feeling of quasi-nostalgia: the man bears a frankly startling resemblance to the portrait of George Washington in the book of famous portraits that Katherine bought him for his last birthday, with wispy grey hair coiffed back to reveal a profile all protruding eyes and roman nose.

It takes him asking whether they were looking to adopt a particular child to jolt Jack out of his thoughts. Katherine is ready with their answer.

“We met a little boy called Daniel, he’s probably only about eighteen months old.”

The reverend raises his pale eyebrows. “That’s… surprising. Might I guide you toward another child?”

Katherine frowns. “What is it about Daniel that you think would be unsuitable for us?”

“It is a… restlessness. There is a certain spirit of rebellion that we have not yet managed to break. Nothing that the generous administration of the rod will not fix, but nevertheless, we have far more deserving children – more amiable, more aesthetically pleasing-“

“We want Daniel, sir.”

The interruption is firm, the first words that Jack has spoken to the man after their introduction, content to let Katherine handle matters of this kind. But _generous administration of the rod._ Oh yes, Jack is all too familiar with the _generous administration of the rod_. Such words do nothing more than cement his desire to rescue that little boy out of this hellhole. Sure, it’s a pretty hellhole, one which masquerades as a lovely home for little wanderers, but it’s anything but, underneath. It’s anything but, upstairs.

The reverend swivels his head to meet Jack’s eyes, the action owlish. There’s irritation in his gaze – this, Jack realises, is a man unused to being interrupted. Still, he merely sets his shoulders. There was fear in offending such men, once, when he too was an orphan. Now, causing them annoyance feels like his birthright.

“Allow me to fetch the file.”

Reverend Plumb inclines his head and crosses to the bookcase. His fingers, soft from years of good living and inside work, skim the spines of the folders before selecting one. He returns to the desk and flips it open, considering the documents inside.

“Born at some point in the January of 1905, though we aren’t sure exactly when; so, yes, Mrs. Kelly, somewhere around the eighteen-month mark. Birth not officially registered, but we did manage to trace the mother’s side – a drunkard, she was, engaged in most disgraceful employment, and we are uncertain… the mother had some colouration akin to that of a mulatto. We, of course, must stress the uncertainty of this; we do not allow the mixing of the races in this establishment, it is a home for white children, but you must be aware of any… undesirable traits that may be lingering.” The man’s lip curls as he glances up at them. “I presume that changes things, though? I have several children on file of far more respectable parentage that-“

“Not at all.” Katherine bites out. “Please continue.”

Jack feels a sudden rush of affection for his indomitable wife. He loves her constantly, irrevocably, with everything in him, of course, but it’s at moments like this that it nearly sends him flying. Her ability to stand her ground through everything, unshaken and unapologetic, sparks this strange kind of pride in his chest. So what if the kid has a bit of African in him? Specs does too, and Jack and the boys like him just as well as anybody else. Besides, Jack figures that if you cut Specs open then he would bleed red just like everybody else, and that’s all that really matters, isn’t it?

“Very well. There are some forms for you to fill out. Please take them home and return them within the next week.” The reverend frowns, producing a stack of papers from one of the desk drawers and sliding them across the green baize of the desk top before cracking open a large, leather-bound diary to consult it. “The next meeting of the board is two Saturdays from now. I can fit you in for a ten o’clock interview with us if you wish to proceed quickly-”

“Yes, yes, that sounds wonderful.” Katherine jumps at his words. The reverend looks once again annoyed at the interruption, but confirms their appointment with the board.

When Katherine and Jack walk down the steps of _The Howard Mission and Home for Little Wanderers,_ they walk with the knowledge that within two weeks, they’ll have a little boy named Daniel.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. The Howard Mission and Home for Little Wanderers was located at 225 East 11th Street in the Lower East Side. It provided housing and education for orphaned children whilst attempting to find them permanent adoption places - even if that involved them being given to families purely to be servants or labourers. To describe the location, I used a photograph from the 1940s I found in NYC Department of Records that shows the home in the background before it was converted into its current usage as offices. It usually looked after children older than Daniel, but this was the only orphanage that I could research properly that Jack and Kath were eligible to adopt from so you’re all just going to have to deal with it!
> 
> 2\. The home was founded by Reverend William C. Van Meter. It is undocumented who took over the home after his death, however he appointed Reverend Russell G. Toles as principal of the home, according to a pamphlet from 1861 called The Little Wanderer’s Friend. Toles’ obituary, from an 1884 edition of the Boston Globe, highlights a number of ministerial colleagues who seem to have been involved in the Home. Among them is a Reverend Albert H. Plumb (1829-1907) who appears to have been in New York at this time. I managed to find an [actual photograph of him from the year before this is set.](https://images.findagrave.com/photos/2019/240/78444617_b63b099b-fd7f-44fd-999a-24379afc69ec.jpeg) I honestly don’t know what kind of person he was, but he was a direct descendant of William Bradford (and, by all accounts, made a rather large hoo-ha about it) one of the founding Puritans of the US and a man whose drivel I had to read for a class on early American settlement earlier this year. Plumb was also a director of both the Massachusetts Total Abstinence Society and the New England Sabbath Protective League, so I feel comfortable in assuming that he was a bit uptight and wouldn’t be overjoyed about Jack’s background. 
> 
> 3\. The film Jack references was the first ever full-colour feature film, Vie et Passion du Christ, released in 1903, first in France and then in the USA. You can watch a digitised version of it [here.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5VPWPgkT8A) The first films were shown in music halls – in New York, they were first shown at Koster & Bial's Music Hall on 34th street (it was demolished in 1901, but shhh artistic license because finding the location of music halls in 1903 New York is really hard). 
> 
> 4\. Eighteen months is early to be able to answer a question like 'what is your name', but my niece was doing it at around that age and developmentally it’s not unheard of. Let Daniel have his shining moment.


	2. Chapter 2

Jack hardly waits until the door has closed behind them to hoist Katherine into his arms and spin her around, giddy with it, the prospect, the future, the possibility. And she’s right there with him, throwing her arms around his neck and giggling, because they’re going to be _parents._

When he sets her down, she beams up at him, bright as the sun overhead, and explodes into light. “I know he’s not what we spoke about, but Jack-“

“He’s _ours_.” Jack nods. “No question.”

He isn’t quite sure how he knows it, that Daniel is theirs, that he was made for them, but he just does. It felt right, somehow, crouching down and talking to the kid, the same way it felt right when Jack slipped the ring he bought with Esther onto Katherine’s finger. He can’t describe it, exactly, because words have always belonged to Katherine, his quota of grand speeches being used up in the heady summer of the strike. But he knows.

And, clearly, Katherine does too. He can see it in the way she smiles at him, that she’s willing to give up everything they’d discussed, the experience he knows she craves of having a tiny baby to cradle in her arms, for this little boy. Jack knew she loved him because of everything she gave up to be with him, that luxurious lifestyle that she left behind, the way that she allowed her family to walk away when they didn’t approve. It’s how he knows that she loves Daniel, or, at least, how he knows that she will grow to.

“I love you, I love you so much!”

“I love you too.” Jack smiles back at her, the joy of it all completely infectious as he takes hold of her hands. “I love you for seein’ it – seein’ past-“

“He’s perfect.” Katherine cuts him off. Jack is grateful; he isn’t entirely sure how he was going to finish that sentence. Seeing past the boy’s dubious parentage? The alleged rebellious behaviour? The birthmark? Jack isn’t sure which he’d have said, only that not too many years ago, people turned their backs on him for such things – for having a whore for a mother, for stealing, for his scars. Katherine always has been able to see past such things. “I don’t care what they say, those horrible people – as if his race should matter to us at all – I’ve known Italians darker than he is and it’s hardly as if he’s subject to the Jim Crow laws. Honestly, I’ve never heard such twaddle.”

Jack knows that the kid could have turned up from Ethiopia last week and Katherine would still have fallen in love with him just as much. Her very… _firm_ rebuttal of a recent pro-segregation essay published in the suffrage magazine she writes for is testament to that. He believes the words ‘deplorable’, ‘eugenicist’ and ‘godless ramblings’ may have been used in one sentence. Hence, he nudges her with his shoulder. She has all the time in the world to fight for the rights of other people, and he’ll stand by her side for every second of it, but today is theirs to celebrate.

“An’ restless an’ rebellious – he’ll fit right in.”

The disgust on Katherine’s face slips away at his words and she grins up at him, teasing. “I don’t know _what_ you’re trying to imply, Mr. Kelly.”

“Jus’ that wi’ you for a mom, he’ll fit in. Rebellious is your middle name, ain’t it? Rabble-rousin’ writer like you-“

“My middle name is Ethel, actually, which you ought to know, John _Francis_ Kelly.” She nudges him back with her shoulder, grinning as he wrinkles his nose at his own name. “And you’ve got some room to talk, mister strike leader.”

It turns out that their middle names become rather more pertinent to the matter of adopting than they had previously expected, given the thoroughness of the forms. The very second they get home, Katherine parks herself at their kitchen table and thumps the forms down on the top of it to fill them out.

“Okay,” Katherine hums, looking the forms over while Jack fixes them some sandwiches, “the forms are pretty detailed. And they need character references for us from the reverend of our parish and our three most recent wage slips as proof of sufficient income. And apparently they do independent background checks.”

“Well,” Jack says, setting a sandwich down by Katherine’s elbow, “Reverend Byrne loves us so character references ain’t goin’ to be a problem. As for wage slips, you keep all that financial stuff, don’cha?”

“I do.” She chews on the end of her pen as she flips through the form. It’s how Jack tells their pens and pencils apart, the teeth marks on the ends of them. He finds it more adorable than he probably ought to, the little habit that only appears when she’s lost in thought. “Right, name: John Francis Kelly. Date of birth: 28th of August, 1880. Occupation: Illustrator. Religion: practicing Baptist. Country of origin: USA-“

“Hell, do they need to know what I ate for breakfast an’ all?” Jack wrinkles his nose, polishing off his sandwich and leaning against the counter. “The length o’ my hair in inches?”

“Oh shush, you.” Katherine smiles, rolling her eyes at him.

Jack wanders over, draping himself over the back of the kitchen chair that she occupies to wrap his arms around her, fingers trailing lightly down her sides. He nips, feather-light, at the sensitive skin just behind her ear, waiting for the shiver he knows it will elicit before smoothing it over with his tongue, a half-hearted apology. He’s not really sorry, if anything, he feels all puffed up and proud in the knowledge that he can play her like a violin.

“‘S there anythin’ on there that y’actually need my help wi’?” He mumbles against her neck. “Or d’you know it all?”

“Um.” Katherine blinks, trying to drag her brain out of the haze of _Jack, Jack, Jack_ and back into the real world. He makes it difficult though – the smell of his aftershave, his chapped lips against her skin, the utter feeling of safety that comes from having his arms around her. “I know everything but: in fifty words or less, please tell us why you want to adopt a child.”

“Oh, uh.” Jack moves his lips away from her neck, instead electing to rest his chin on her shoulder. “I wants to give a kid a childhood. The chance to grow up in a good family, wi’ parents who love ‘em, an’ to never know what it’s like to be cold or hungry.”

Katherine doesn’t say anything for a long while, a long enough time that something tight and burning begins to coil in the pit of Jack’s stomach. It’s been a long time since she made him nervous, but here she goes again, turning his life upside down with a brush of her lips and a whispered _for sure._ He doesn’t think he’ll ever quite get used to her, not even if he lives another fifty years of marriage with her.

Jack knows, of course, that he isn’t eloquent the way Katherine is. But he really did mean what he said – one look at his face when he and Katherine had that first conversation when adoption became not a future-thing but an immediate-future-thing would convince anybody of that. Just because orphanages and the prospect of being a shitty father make him nervous, he’s still excited as hell about this kid.

“Was that not good enou-“ He starts to ask, but is abruptly quieted by via Katherine’s favourite method of shutting him up - kissing him.

It’s good – strike that, it’s phenomenal, it always is – but then her eyelashes flutter in that wonderful way they always do when he swipes his tongue across her bottom lip, purposeful and controlling in a way she only indulges when they’re alone, a light tickle against his cheek, and they’re _wet._ Jack pulls away, cradling her face in his hands like she’s made of fine china. She might as well be. She’s the most precious thing he’s ever held.

“Hell, Ace, why you lookin’ like you’s boutta burst into tears?” He asks, breathless.

“I just – I love you so much.” She wraps her arms around him, tucking her face into the side of his neck. He only shaved this morning, but already Katherine can feel the invisible beginnings of stubble rasping against her skin. She’ll regret it later, she knows, when the stubble makes her skin itchy and red, but rubs herself against him like a cat anyway as his arms come around to hold her, one cradling the back of her head, the other spanning her waist. “I don’t know what I did to deserve you.”

“Believe me, Katherine,” and the way she can feel the vibrations of his little, serious chuckle is enough to drive her all the way out of her mind for him, “I spend every damn day askin’ myself the same thing ‘bout you.”

It takes them almost an hour to work their way through the entirety of the forms, though it probably would go much quicker if they didn’t try to do so whilst hopelessly entangled together on the kitchen chair. But still, it’s the best way for them; tangling themselves together, winding and braiding their bodies and hopes and terrors, is the only way they get through things, both the highest joys and the deepest fears. It’s the only way they overcome any of their challenges. Together.

Still, they manage to get it done before David and Miriam unceremoniously career through their front door, their arrival announced by the ear-splitting shriek that can only be achieved by a one-year-old.

Once in the hallway, Jack immediately holds out his arms for his honorary niece. “Here.”

Miriam sighs in relief at the offer and passes over the squalling baby. “Thank you, Jack. She won’t stop wailing – never have children.”

“Bit late, now.” Jack chuckles as he shushes the baby, bouncing on his heels to soothe her and carefully tucking the crooked second knuckle of his finger between the little girl’s lips, smiling down into her big, brown eyes as she quiets.

Both Miriam and Davey freeze. “You haven’t?”

Katherine can barely suppress her smile as she wraps an arm around her husband and leans up to coo over the little girl now happily (and, thank goodness, quietly) suckling on Jack’s finger. “We go before the board in two weeks.”

Something warm bursts open in Jack’s chest at the sight of Katherine fussing over little Eva. The loss of Lucy shook _him_ to the core, but he can’t imagine the pain that his wife has felt every day since, watching other women fuss over their little ones. When Miriam got pregnant just three months into her marriage to Davey, it was difficult, to say the least. Katherine hadn’t wanted to see them at first, and that was fine, he understood, but they couldn’t shut them out forever. Jack’s just so damn proud of her, for swallowing all that down and showing up for Miriam. She was the one in the room with Miriam when she gave birth to Eva, holding her right hand while Miriam’s mother held her left. She was the one who knitted terrible little clothes for a baby, unlike their own, who would actually get to wear them. She is the one fussing over her friend’s baby, happy for her, even though she will never get to do that with her own. He looks at her and sees strength beyond imagination.

“That’s amazing! Congratulations!” Miriam cries, pulling Katherine into an enthusiastic hug. And Miriam is a wonderful girl, really, Jack knows, and he’s glad for her and David. Little Eva couldn’t have better parents. “We’ll have to get you set up with everything – oh, did you have this afternoon all planned out? Because there’s a flea market going on over on the East Side –“

“What do you think, Jack?” Katherine looks up at him, her face lighting up. “You and David could put the crib together while Miriam and I go and get things? Unless you wanted to help pick things out?”

“Nah, you know I hates shoppin’. Go have fun.” Jack drops a kiss on her cheek, quite a feat as he continues to rock Eva.

It’s a struggle to tear his eyes away from the girls, his wonderful wife and his beautiful niece. They’re his two favourite people in the world. Jack knows that he’ll probably have to demote Eva from second-favourite to third-favourite once she reaches the stage that all kids go through when all they ever do is ask _why,_ but for now she retains her spot. Still, he manages to look away, raising an eyebrow at David.

“You up for buildin’ furniture, Dave?” Jack asks. Davey grimaces as he claps his friend on the back in congratulation.

“What could go wrong?” The way that Davey asks it makes it sound as if many, many things could go wrong.

What could go wrong, indeed? Jack and Katherine had bought the crib a few weeks ago on a whim upon seeing it at yet another flea market, their usual stop for anything that they needed. It’s second hand, but it comes in a box with instructions on how to screw it all together, so, really, it’s basically foolproof. At least, that’s what Katherine’s hoping as she and Miriam walk out the door, leaving Jack holding a screwdriver and David chasing after Eva, who is now apparently crawling at a speed approaching the speed of light.

It takes them a whole ten minutes to wrangle the little girl, themselves, and the box into the little bedroom, but eventually they manage it, clicking the door shut and thus finally trapping Eva inside. Immediately taken with the enormous jungle mural that covers the wall, she crawls over to it to examine the tiger. David takes this as his cue to begin the process of meticulously extracting each individual piece from the box and laying them out, neatly spaced on the floor in front of him. He has been engrossed in this task for several minutes when Jack gets tired of the waiting and turns the whole box upside down, crumpling up and tossing the instructions over his shoulder for good measure.

“Jack, those are the instructions.” David whines, making a vain grab for the instructions even as they sail through the air away from him.

“We don’ need instructions.”

“We _definitely_ need instructions.”

“You’s smart, Davey. What kind of lawyer needs instructions to figure out how to put up a crib?”

David blinks at him owlishly. “The kind of lawyer who knows not to make his life unnecessarily difficult by ignorin’ the instructions.”

“You’s so borin’.” Jack grins, picking up two likely-looking pieces of wood and starting to screw them together.

“You’re so reckless.” David says, scooping up Eva as she makes a grab for the box of screws and holding her fast as she throws a determined tantrum at not being able to clasp the shiny pieces of metal in her chubby little fists. This, he decides, is going to be a disaster.

It doesn’t go well, by any means, but it only starts to enter disaster territory for Davey after they’ve already built the crib once, using Jack’s haphazard guesswork for guidance, and had to dismantle it due to what he phrased as the ‘severely compromised structural integrity of the crib’.

Jack, at this point, finally gives in and allows David to fetch his reading glasses from the pocket of his jacket where it’s hanging in the hallway, returning to read out the instructions while Jack screws it all together.

And then Jack looks up. “Where’s Eva?”

They both glance towards the door. Which Davey left open. _Shit_.

Both Jack and Davey launch themselves towards the door at the same time, almost knocking into one another as they slide across the floorboards in socks, Jack running for the bathroom as Davey clatters down the stairs. Jack’s the lucky one. Stood at the low table in their bathroom, having clearly hoisted herself up onto her feet by the aid of it, is Eva. Absolutely covered in white foam.

“She’s here, Dave!” Jack calls out, hearing something muttered in Yiddish and feet ascending the stairs once again.

Eva looks up at Jack and grins, thumping backwards onto her bottom and crawling over to him, streaking his trouser legs with the white foam. The white foam, Jack recognises, is his shaving cream, the entire pot of which the little terror has managed to dunk into the washbasin, work up quite a lather, and then cover herself entirely. It’s in her hair and on her hands and notched in the dimples of her little corduroy dress – and that, Jack knows, is never coming out.

Davey walks in to find Jack picking up a tiny, soapy, giggling girl. How on earth his daughter doesn’t have the fine motor skills to play with the wooden shape-sorter that they got her for her first birthday, yet has managed to do this, is utterly beyond him. All he knows is that Miriam is going to be quite vexed if they don’t manage to clean this up.

Eva’s adventure ends with Jack dumping her in the kitchen sink and turning on the taps. The kid comes out soaked and shivering and gets wrapped in a fresh nappy and one of Jack’s jumpers, but she’s alive, which is more than they thought they’d manage twenty minutes ago, so they’re counting it as a win. The little burgundy dress, however, is beyond saving.

Jack cradles the little girl, now sucking on her de-soaped thumb, against his chest as Davey does his best with the hopeless dress.

“Sorry,” he sighs, manoeuvring himself to sit down in one of the kitchen chairs and rubbing a tired hand across his face, then mutters; “I can’t even keep track o’ someone else’s kid, how bad is I goin’ to be wi’ my own?”

Davey, seemingly giving up on the lost cause of a dress, turns away from the sink. Water drips from his fingers and onto the floor. “Jack, you raised every kid in that lodgehouse. You’ll be a great father.”

Jack doesn’t dare look at Davey. People keep telling him this: Katherine, Davey, Medda, Mayer. Mayer, oddly enough, is the one he trusts the most on this matter (well, apart from Katherine – he trusts her most on every matter) given that the man has managed to raise three successful children – Sarah, the proud mother to two girls; Davey, Eva’s father and solicitor at one of the city’s fastest-growing law firms; Les, who’s due to go to Harvard in the fall. Jack’s still a little bit terrified that one of these days Mayer’s going to turn around and give him a good hiding for being so presumptuous as to try and insert himself into their family, but he trusts the man on this. It’s what he tries to focus on when his hands shake with the thought that he might one day lose control of them and let them morph into his own father’s hands, red from doled-out beatings.

“Y’really think so?”

Davey nods, drying his hands and then reaching out to take Eva. “Of course. If Miriam and I can do it, you and Katherine certainly can.”

Jack looks down, scuffing his foot against the table leg. “But you an’ Miriam… you’s so put together, y’know?”

Davey snorts. “I had Miriam sobbin’ on one side of me yesterday and Eva wailin’ on the other. We’re all just pretendin’ until we figure it out.”

…

Apparently, Jack discovers after the Jacobs have taken Eva home for her much-needed second bath of the day, there is a whole lot of paraphernalia which is necessary for caring for one small human being. They now have a pram and a miniature cutlery set and diapers and clothes and toys. Jack can’t help but wonder whether his own parents bothered with such luxuries. Katherine must sense it, somehow, his tendency to drift into the maudlin, and produces, from inside of the pram, a toy train painted a vibrant, fire-hydrant red.

“Look! It’s a wooden train!” She smiles at him, clearly delighted. Jack can’t quite stifle his laughter. “What?”

“Jus’ wonderin’ which o’ you is goin’ to enjoy playin’ wi’ these more, you or Daniel?”

Katherine’s twists her lips into an arch smile, eyes flashing with mirth. “Me, obviously.”

“C’mere then,” Jack chuckles, opening his arms to welcome her into his lap in their armchair, “an’ tell me more ‘bout this wooden train."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jim Crow was already a term in use to refer to segregation laws at this time. Such laws were in effect in NYC at this time and if Daniel's non-white ancestry were officially confirmed, he wouldn't be allowed to be adopted by Jack and Katherine. That's why his genealogy is going to remain ambiguous. On a lighter note, the first record of flatpack furniture I could find dates to 1878 in [this patent.](https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/af/f3/39/46cd4e87957e47/US202505.pdf) It is therefore possible that Jack and Katherine could have purchased a second hand crib which could be put together at home, though widespread distribution of such furniture didn’t take off until after the second world war.
> 
> Comments make me very very happy :)


	3. Chapter 3

“Sweetheart, they ain’t goin’ to approve us based on how white your teeth are.”

Katherine’s eyes dart up to meet Jack’s, reflected in the bathroom mirror. He’s leaning against the doorframe behind her and he holds her gaze in the mirror as she spits out the toothpaste and rinses her toothbrush under the tap.

“Hygiene is important, Jack.” Katherine tells him, breaking eye contact as she looks down to squeeze another pea-sized blob of toothpaste onto her toothbrush as per the directions on the back of the tube. She didn’t even know that there were directions for the usage of toothpaste until today, but she’s going to follow them to the letter from now on. “They will want to see that we can look after Daniel’s health and regular dental care is a big part of that.”

Jack sighs as he wanders up behind her, wraps one arm around her waist, and pries the toothbrush from her hand with his free one. “Yeah, but you’s brushed your teeth three times this mornin’ an’ if you keeps goin’ you’s goin’ to brush them clean away.”

Katherine looks utterly heartbroken as she leans back against his chest, staring at their reflection in the mirror. They do this every evening, the two of them, brushing their teeth together, Jack behind her with one arm wrapped around her waist, pulling faces at her in the mirror whenever they make eye contact. Once, he made her laugh so hard that she sprayed droplets of toothpaste all over the mirror. She had been mortified, but Jack was just Jack, wiping the mirror off with his sleeve and telling her how much he loved hearing her laugh. Today, however, she has to be careful not to dislodge the delicate curled updo that she’s wrangled her hair into as she leans back against him. Jack can’t bear it, her nervousness, so he takes hold of her shoulders and turns her to face him.

“You looks lovely, an’ respectable, an’ hygienic.”

Katherine bites her lip, then hurriedly lets it out from between her teeth. _Don’t smudge the lipstick. You don’t want them to think you’re a harlot._ “But do I look like a good mother?”

“You looks like the _perfect_ mother.” Jacks says, pulling her into his embrace. Even with her head turned to the side at an awkward angle to stop her make-up from ruining his dress shirt, it’s enough to calm her down.

“I’m sorry.” She mumbles, wrapping her arms around him in return. Jack’s thumb traces the lines of her shoulder blades through the thin fabric of her dress.

“Hey, ‘s okay. ‘S a big day.”

“How are you so calm?”

“You’s kiddin’, right?” Jack pulls away a little, a wry smile playing across his lips. “Kath, sweetheart, why d’you think you had to calm me down after six nightmares last night?”

“Oh.”

And, yes, she supposes he’s right. She _did_ have to sit and rub his back and talk him through how to breathe again a frankly worrying number of times last night. It must be awful, she knows, to not even be able to escape your troubles in sleep. She should have picked up on why he was worse last night. They get worse, when he’s stressed, she knows. Normally they average just one a night.

“I’s scared as all hell.” He tells her. “But I’s got you. So ‘s goin’ to be fine.”

His own words become rather more difficult to believe when Mary leads them into the schoolroom Jack had glimpsed when they visited, now rearranged to more closely resemble a courtroom than anything else.

There is a long table in front of the chalkboard at the end of the room, with five people seated behind it and two empty chairs in front. In the centre seat behind the table is Reverend Plumb, solemn, his hands spread flat on the table, palms up in a picture of beneficence. Jack thinks he looks a little bit like Jesus in that famous painting of the last supper that Katherine showed him a photograph of. Except, you know, less holy, more terrifying. To his right are two other men in clerical collars, somewhere in late middle age, to his left the thin woman in the green dress that they met last time and an aristocratic looking woman in an obscenely large hat. Jack wonders whether she had to edge sideways through the door to prevent it being knocked off.

“Mr. Kelly, Mrs. Kelly, nice to see you.”

“Nice to see you again, Reverend Plumb.” Katherine plasters on her high-society smile.

“Please, have a seat.” Reverend Plumb nods his head to the two empty seats. As they sit down, he gestures to his left and right, making introductions for the stone faced board members. “Now, we are joined by Reverends Kirkby and Hughes; Miss Bartlett, one of our teachers here; and Mrs. Atkins, one of our primary benefactors. We have read through your application forms and we have a few questions to ask you about that, and then we’ll send you out whilst we go over the independent background checks.”

“Of course.” Katherine nods, eager.

“So, first of all,” pronounces Kirkby in a voice that could send whole congregations to sleep, “why have you chosen to adopt at this present time?”

“Well, we’re very stable.” Katherine smiles, making confident eye contact with each board member in turn. Jack sends up a prayer of thanks that at least one of them knows what they’re doing and concentrates very hard on trying not to sweat through the back of his suit jacket. “Now is the time when we would have been having our own children, if that were possible. We have plenty of savings and regular income, we’ve been married for almost six years, and a have large familial network to support us and our child.”

Jack wonders whether Katherine has ever considered a career as a saleswoman, because if she can make the two of them sound this good he’s pretty sure she could sell chocolate teapots door-to-door and make a killing.

“Remind me what it is that brings in that regular income, Mr. Kelly.” The other reverend, Hughes, presses.

“Oh, I’s an illustrator,” Jack says, trying his best to sound like somebody who knows what the hell he’s talking about, “I works for the Wall Street Journal at the moment, but I’s hopin’ to move into illustratin’ for a publisher sometime soon. An’ I does commissions on the side. An’ Katherine’s a novelist, o’ course.”

At that, all eyes turn on Katherine, a mixture of surprise and horror.

“You work, Mrs. Kelly?” Reverend Plumb frowns.

“I do.”

“Don’t you feel that children benefit from a strong maternal presence in the home?” The man probes, unsmiling. “I wonder at your being able to fulfil that if your mind is occupied elsewhere.”

Katherine is rather inclined to tell him to stick his strong maternal presence where the sun doesn’t shine, but refrains, wondering, as she does so, if the voice in her head that suggests such things is starting to speak with a Manhattan accent rather similar to her husband’s. Instead, she twists her lips into something she hopes looks like pleasantness. “I work from home in an excessively flexible capacity. I’m sure that we’ll be able to meet any requirements that you might have for us.”

“I don’t believe I’ve read any of your work.”

Jack looks over at the speaker, Miss Bartlett, something protective rising in him at the derision he can hear in the woman’s words. He feels like a yapping terrier ready to snap at one of her skinny ankles. Still, he forces himself to stay in his seat. It’s Katherine. She can handle herself perfectly well against disdain from a woman who looks like she stays warm at night by burning copies of _Madame Bovary_ on her bedroom fire.

“I publish under my byline. Katherine Plumber?”

Miss Bartlett’s lip curls. “Ah.”

“You mentioned a large family, Mrs. Kelly.” Mrs. Atkins finally speaks up, her voice imperious and in possession of a curious, slightly British-sounding accent. “Could you give some details of your parentage?”

“Of course,” Katherine smiles tightly, “my father is Joseph Pulitzer.”

Reverend Hughes, who is nibbling on the end of his pen, gasps and almost swallows the thing. He coughs a little, dropping the offending article onto the wooden table before him with a smart tap. “Joseph Pulitzer of the _Evening World_?”

“The very same.”

“Those are fine connections, indeed.” Mrs. Atkins nods. “What of yourself, Mr. Kelly?”

“Oh. Uh.” Jack scratches at the back of his neck. “I’s an orphan myself, actually. Don’ know much ‘bout my parents.”

The board don’t seem to know quite how to react to that, shooting surreptitious glances at one another and coughing quietly. Jack feels his stomach start to sink. He’s fucked it up, surely, he knows he has -

“That’s part of the reason we want to adopt.” Katherine beams, reaching across to take hold of Jack’s hand and squeeze it. Jack clings to her fingers like a lifeline, trying to focus his mind on the warm gold of her wedding ring where it presses into his palm. “To give a child like Jack a second chance.”

Reverend Plumb smiles, or, at least, Jack thinks it might have been a smile, once, before it was run through the mangle of bad humour and old age. “You are a rather… unconventional match then.”

“We are well matched.” Katherine juts her chin out. “We are all equal in the sight of God, are we not?”

“…Indeed.” The smile, if it could be called that, is gone as abruptly as it arrived. Plumb picks up the character references written by Reverend Byrne. “Speaking of, your reverend has much to say in your favour. Is he a relative of yours?”

Jack can’t help but feel a little offended at the thought that they would try and cheat the system that way. He doesn’t need to cheat or lie or steal to get what he needs, not anymore. Why would he go to that effort when he has everything a man could dream of already – folks, friends, _Katherine._ He knows that Katherine is definitely offended, however, when he feels her stiffen beside him, her muscles coiling tight as she rebukes the notion.

“No, he is not.”

“And you attend his services each week?” Reverend Plumb asks.

Katherine is still tightly wound, a yo-yo ready to be released, and Jack is pretty sure that if he doesn’t intervene then she might launch herself across the table and scratch the reverend’s eyes out. Honestly, he wouldn’t blame her – strike that, he’d probably cheer her on – except for the fact that it probably wouldn’t get them any closer to adopting Daniel.

“We ain’t missed a Sunday service in five years.” He offers cheerfully.

“You plan to raise a child in the faith, then?”

“Oh, yes.” Katherine relaxes a little. “Our faith is a big part of our lives. We want our child to grow up in a welcoming and loving relationship with both God and their church family.”

“And which child is it that you would like to raise in this way?”

“We met a little boy named Daniel on our visit here?”

“The disfigured boy?” Mrs. Atkins asks, her tone sharp as she leans forward against the table to question Reverend Plumb.

The man opens his mouth to answer, but Jack gets there first, irritated by the woman’s immediate judgement. “‘S jus’ a birthmark.”

There’s no actual threat or malice in the words, but they sure as hell aren’t welcoming, by any stretch of the imagination. Mrs. Atkins looks at him as if he’s one of the many servants that she surely has, about to be ground to dust beneath the pointy toe of her shoes.

Reverend Plumb clears his throat. “Are you ready to look over the other documents?” The other board members murmur their assent and so the reverend raises his eyes to Jack and Katherine. “Thank you, Mr. Kelly, Mrs. Kelly. You may wait next door in my office whilst we deliberate.”

In the office where they wait, there’s a clock on the wall. Jack can’t read it, but it doesn’t really matter. It could be ten minutes or ten hours that they spend in that office, Jack’s fingers drumming against his thigh and Katherine biting her lip until it bleeds. When the door opens, both of them shoot to their feet, Jack wiping sweaty palms on his trousers, Katherine clasping her hands together in front of her.

Reverend Plumb hands a piece of paper to Jack. “Your application has been rejected by the board.”

All of the air gets sucked out of the room, leaving Jack winded and gasping for oxygen. He’d thought about what would happen if their application was rejected, of course he had, but he’d never thought that he’d have to deal with the reality of that. It’s sickening, the whole thing is sickening, and he wants to run away or throw up or punch the reverend in the face or maybe all three.

“What?” He breathes, finally.

Jack doesn’t dare look over at Katherine. He thinks she might be crying, her face crumpling in the way that he screws up his failed portraits. That’s what Plumb is doing, isn’t it? Crumpling them up and throwing them in the trash. It’s the only thing such people have ever seen him as, gutter trash, and it breaks his heart that he’s dragged Katherine down into that as well.

“Really, Mr. Kelly, did you think that we don’t check up on our prospective parents?” Reverend Plumb looks at him as if he’s nothing more than a piece of shit stuck to the bottom of his shoe. “You thought that we wouldn’t find out about your criminal record?”

Katherine’s voice cuts through the silence, tremulous yet firm. “But Jack was pardoned –“

“ _Semel fur, semper fur_ , Mrs. Kelly.” Latin sounds almost more natural coming from between the reverend’s thin lips than English does. Jack turns to look at Katherine, his usual response when he comes across something he doesn’t understand, these days, except she looks as if she might throttle the man in front of her. Seeing Jack’s confusion, the reverend continues. “For the uneducated among us; once a criminal, always a criminal.”

The paper shakes and droops in Jack’s hands, the mess of typewritten symbols gradually forming themselves together before his eyes into a list of every bad thing he’s ever done. The worst part is the _pardoned_ stamp, in red ink on the bottom of the page. The fact that it doesn’t matter. There is no resurrection in that stamp. The letters still lie, bold and black, on the page, a catalogue of his substantial list of misdemeanours. It doesn’t matter what he does, he will never escape this. He can play at being an artist with his money and his house and his wife, but he’ll always be the skinny kid huddled on the corner of the street hawking papes. That will never change.

This is the end of him, surely? The end of them. What reason does Katherine have to stay, when he’s just snatched away the dream that she’s been cultivating for six years? No reason at all. She’ll realise, now, that he’s a fraud.

“I thought this was a Christian organisation?” Katherine snaps, somewhere in the distance. “What about forgiveness? Redemption?”

“Such things are granted by God. Unfortunately for you, the person granting the adoption certificates is me.”

Something white hot streaks through Jack’s veins at that. Isn’t the pardoned stamp enough? Hasn’t he suffered enough? He’s done his time, served his sentence, has done twenty times over. Where is it written that a guy can’t catch a break?

“Y’really think Daniel’s goin’ to have a better home here than wi’ us?” He growls. “Growin’ up wi’ no parents, hired out for labour as soon as he hits ten years old?”

Reverend Plumb fixes him with an icy stare. “I do not answer to you.”

“Is there anything we can do?” Katherine asks, splaying a hand across Jack’s chest, a reminder that punching the reverend isn’t going to land him anywhere but in jail. And that’s if they’re lucky. “Anything to change the board’s mind?”

“Mrs. Kelly, it would take the word of the president himself to change the board’s mind.” Reverend Plumb rests his hand on the brass doorknob, looking them up and down, derisive. “Now, I am very busy, please see yourselves out.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Because everybody seems to love the historical notes: Toothpaste in tubes was invented in the 1890s, beginning with [Doctor Sheffield's Creme Dentrifice.](https://www.berkeleydentalcare.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Screen-Shot-2017-02-15-at-2.46.12-PM.png) Unfortunately, said tubes were made of lead, which didn't turn out super well for anybody. Also, [this](http://www.virtualmuseum.ca/media/edu/EN/uploads/image/LO1DA462354.jpg) is a period drawing of the real Reverend Kirkby.
> 
> Comments, as always, make me very very happy :)


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is called mutual reassurance because that’s the only thing that it contains. Bless their little cotton socks. Also, I love that all of you picked up on my less than subtle foreshadowing – I forgot you Americans have all the presidents memorised and all that. Please please please comment if you are enjoying – otherwise I don’t know what I’m doing wrong/right.

The walk home is a long one.

Katherine links her arm through his, and it feels cold. Normally she’ll hold his hand, fingers intertwined, or let him slip an arm around her waist and time her steps to match his. She’s fuming, he can tell, but the idea that her fury is directed at him, rather than where his own is focused on Reverend Plumb, is terrifying beyond belief.

“Stop it.” She finally snaps, taking hold of his arm and turning them off their route home, instead toward a small park. Jack’s grateful for the silence finally being broken, despite the harshness of the words. He figures he probably deserves the harshness.

“Stop what?”

“Worrying. I can hear you worrying from here.”

Jack falls silent and tries, unsuccessfully, to stop worrying. Eventually, as Katherine leads them through this posh park full of elegant couples dressed just like them, they come to a stop in front of a small copse of evergreens. And then she leads him into the circle of trees, rips her hat from her head, throwing it to the floor, and begins scaling a tree. Honestly, of all the reactions Jack has been expecting, this one isn’t on the list. Still, when she turns and looks down at him and asks: “Well? Are you coming or not?”; he dutifully follows her ascent up the tree to sit beside her on a wide, low branch, now entirely hidden behind a veil of leaves.

It’s a long time before Katherine speaks, which is how Jack knows that whatever she’s going to say will be important. For all that he’s concerned, every sentence that spills from Katherine’s mouth is pure poetry, so if she’s taking the time to choose her words carefully then it must be serious. Jack hopes that it isn’t divorce-level serious. He hasn’t had to worry about such things since the first year of their marriage. Maybe he’s been taking the whole loving, established relationship thing for granted.

“Lucy and I used to sit on this branch, when we were children. Hide from our governess in this little copse of trees.” She doesn’t look at him. Jack studies her profile, watching tears form on the surface of right eye, then get blinked away. “I come here, sometimes, when I miss her. I wanted the first time that I brought you here to be with our children. Hopefully two of them, so they could play together like Lucy and I did, knowing what it’s like to have a sister. But just one would have done.”

 _Just one would have done._ Useless. Snyder used to call him that. And he feels it, now, because all he wants, all he ever wants, is for Katherine to be happy. And this is something that he can’t fix. He can’t change this for her, can’t make it better, can’t make her happy. And, really, what business does he have being her husband if he can’t do that? His own uselessness feels as though it might crack him clean in two.

“I’s sorry.” Jack says, low and quiet, even though he knows that it doesn’t make a scrap of difference.

Katherine, who has been staring straight ahead as if she can see through the haze of leaves and through to the world outside their little bubble of disappointment, looks down at her hands in her lap. They’re a little bit green from where she gripped the bark to climb up. Green with envy. That’s her. Envy for what she can’t have. It’s a sin, she thinks, to be envious. She can’t seem to help it anyway.

“You don’t need to be sorry.”

“I _is_.” Jack can’t stand it, can’t stand her sadness, can’t _fix it_ , so he reaches over and clasps her hands in his. “Kath, I’s sorry, ‘s all my fault, I’s let you down. I don’ know how to make it up an’ I don’ want you to leave but I wouldn’t blame you an’-“

“Jack, when we found out that I couldn’t have children, you didn’t leave.” Katherine’s eyes snap up to meet his. _Of course,_ she thinks, _of course that’s where his thoughts went. To it being his fault._ Sometimes, she can’t fathom how Jack carries the weight of so much of the world on his shoulders, how he bears the responsibility for so much. _Of course, it didn’t occur to him that Reverend Plumb is a tyrannical bully and not a bit of this is his fault._ She frees one hand from his tight grip and reaches over to brush his dark curls back off his forehead. “So, why on earth would I leave you?”

“‘S different.” Jack sounds pained and it breaks her heart. “You didn’t choose to not have kids. I chose to steal.”

“My love, it wasn’t a choice at all, was it? Either you stole or you starved, or another child starved. That’s not a choice. And I would much rather that you were here with me than you have died with a clean record.” She squeezes his hands in hers. “I don’t need children to be happy; I’ve got _you_. Children would be the cherry on top, but I’m happy and I’m content and I love you.”

Jack looks up at her, something pleading in the dark of his eyes. It’s almost like he wants her to hate him, like he feels he deserves it. Well, Katherine wishes him luck with that. She couldn’t resent him for this if she tried. Hating him is the most foreign idea in the world.

“But Daniel – Kath, you wanted him so badly, I wanted him so badly-“

“Being contented doesn’t mean giving up.” She juts her chin out, defiant. Katherine has had her time to be dejected, but she knows that nothing will happen if she just gives in. And she’s sure as hell not giving in. “I’ve got a plan.”

Jack blinks at her slowly, then nods. “I’s listenin’.”

“Good for you.” The corner of her mouth quirks in defiance. “He wants the word of the president himself? Lucky for him, we know the president.”

Jack’s mouth all but drops open. “Y’don’ mean – Kath, we’s met him once-“

“No, _I_ met him once.” She smirks. “You shared a carriage with him as well.”

Trust her to have remembered that story; of all the possible stupid anecdotes about his teenage years, _that_ is the one she remembers? “Ace-“

“Trust me on this. Daniel is going to be sitting on this branch before the year is out.”

And, god help him, he does trust her. What else can he do? It’s _Katherine;_ his Katherine. He’d jump off the Brooklyn Bridge if she told him she’d catch him.

…

Jack is working on a commission in their little backyard that night when Katherine appears in the doorway behind him. He tries to paint out of doors as much as he can, even though the tiny backyard barely has room for him and his easel, mostly because it saves him having to lay out dust-sheets and the like to save their furniture from his paints. He’s working from a photograph at the moment, a portrait of one of the new Vanderbilt boys, Elliott, born sometime last year. Ever since Ralph married Frederica, he’s had quite the steady stream of portrait clients through her family connections, given that the Vanderbilt family seem to pop another kid out every other week. He’s quite engrossed in it, really, so Katherine’s voice from behind him startles him a little as she clears her throat and begins to read, a smug smile on her lips.

_“Dear Mr. President,_

_You probably do not remember me, but my name is Jack Kelly. In 1899, I led the newsies’ strike against Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst in New York City. After the strike, you pulled some strings to get me pardoned after seeing the conditions in the juvenile detention centre where I had been held. Since then, I have got a job as an illustrator and got married, however my wife is unable to have children. We have attempted to adopt a little boy from The Howard Mission and Home for Little Wanderers but our application has been unsuccessful after they found out about my criminal record._

_I know it is a lot to ask and I know that you must be very busy, but please may I request that you provide a character reference for me? We want nothing more than to be able to adopt a child._

_With greatest thanks,_

_John Kelly”_

She looks up at him, expectant. Jack wipes his hands off with a rag slung over the edge of his easel and wanders over to peer at the typewritten sheet. Well, he tries to, but his wife looks so damn pretty that it’s difficult to keep his eyes on the page at hand. See, Jack loves Katherine all different ways, but he loves her perhaps the most when she’s like this, caught up in the act of writing. For her, it seems, writing is a conjuring, a making out of nothing, a speaking into being. It sets her eyes alight with possibility. Ink is streaked across her cheek, the top two buttons of her blouse undone, wisps of hair escaping the haphazard bun she’s shoved her hair into by aid of a pencil.

“Why’d you write it pretendin’ to be me?” Jack coughs, trying to focus.

“Jack, my father spent the entirety of his career attempting to keep Roosevelt from the presidency. He’s hardly going to take kindly to his greatest antagonist’s daughter asking him to help her, now, is he?”

Jack shakes his head in wonder as he tugs her into his lap on the kitchen chair that he’s brought outside to do his painting. Katherine comes willingly, pliant and pleased. “You’s real smart, you know that?”

“I believe somebody once told me that, yes.” Katherine smiles up at him, a little coquettish in the way she looks up at him from under her eyelashes. She’s going to kill him, one of these days. “Beautiful and independent too, don’t you think?”

“Oh yeah. Definitely. ‘Specially now.”

Katherine snorts. “My hair is held up with a pencil.”

“I can fix that.” Jack grins, and, before she knows it, he’s tugging the pencil out of her hair and letting the curls cascade down her back.

He looks almost obscenely proud of himself, running his fingers through the soft mane of her hair and pressing his lips to the places where the downy hairs that cover the nape of her neck fade into the long chestnut ones that he loves to tangle himself up in. That’s what his life is, now, he supposes. Tangled up in Katherine.

“Mr. Kelly, what you think you’re doing?” Katherine asks, even as she tilts her head to the side to give him better access to the creamy expanse of her skin. Her voice is light with suppressed laughter that tells Jack that he’s doing every single little thing just right.

“Remindin’ you of how beautiful you is, o’ course.”

“Oh?” He can hear the smile in her voice. “And how beautiful is that?”

“Absolutely gorgeous.” Jack grins. “Gorgeous hair,” he plants a kiss in the hair just behind her ear, “gorgeous face,” he kisses the tip of her nose, extracting a giggle from her that makes his heart sing, “gorgeous body-” Jack makes to dip his mouth to the place where her buttons are undone, ready and more than willing to nose aside the soft cotton of her blouse and -

Katherine hooks two fingers under his chin and nudges his head up to face her, flushed and breathless. “Liar.”

She knows perfectly well that next-door’s window overlooks their backyard and Mrs. Ross has already made out to the rest of terrace that they’re a pair of nymphomaniacs – the woman certainly doesn’t need any more ammunition. Besides, Jack’s just teasing her, and it’s embarrassing him saying all these things that aren’t true.

“Oh, Ace, I’s speakin’ the truth.” Jack pulls back a little, looking her full in the face. She can feel her cheeks heating up, so she looks away, burning under the intensity of his gaze. Jack, however, doesn’t get the message, taking hold of her chin between his thumb and forefinger and bringing her back to face him. “Y’know what they said in there, it was garbage, right? You’s got a fantastic maternal presence.”

Katherine swallows, fixing her eyes on a point just over his shoulder. “It was garbage what they said about _you_.”

“Katherine, darlin’, sweetheart. You’s perfect.”

“You’re biased.” She laughs, but Jack doesn’t laugh with her. Katherine sighs. He always could read her like an open book. “What if – what if I can’t do this? What if they were right to turn us down? Not because of you, of course, that was stupid, you’ll be a fantastic father, but – well –“

“You’s goin’ to be a fantastic mom.” Jack has his hands on either side of her face now, his voice firm and full of something that she can’t quite pinpoint, but that rounds out the harsh New York syllables into something softer. “I means, we’s both goin’ to screw it up, but we’s goin’ to muddle through. Jus’ like bein’ married, yeah? You an’ me, muddlin’ through.”

And, when he says it like that, she can believe it.

“You and me.”

Later, much later, when they’re in their bed, listening to the rain lashing fiercely against the window pane like ten thousand tiny fists hammering to break in, Katherine whispers the words against his skin. It’s a good time to do it, just before he goes to sleep, when they’re both boneless, sleepy and sated and helpless for one another. Nothing, not even ten thousand real fists at their window pane, could bother them now, not when her ear is pressed to his chest and she can hear his heart beating, strong and steady and with every beat making a promise over again. Jack is hers. Has been since the day she met him. So she whispers the words to him, knowing that he isn’t quite asleep yet by the rhythm of his breathing because she knows his body better than she knows her own, now, and not wanting to let him go quite yet. Never wanting to give him over to anything stronger than a wave of sleep.

“I love you, you know. You don’t ever have to worry about me leaving.”

Katherine knows that it worries Jack less now, the idea of her leaving, just like the idea of him leaving worries her less. It’s still there, though, not born of distrust but of too many disappointments and disasters. But that’s okay. They get through such things together. They have done before. They will do again. Still, she’s found that with Jack, someone who so dislikes expressing his emotions in anything other than anger, these little affirmations are what he needs. She’s proud of him, honestly, for how he reacted today, despite it breaking her heart. Six years ago, he’d have punched the reverend for rejecting their application. Today he let her in.

And he looks down at her now and lets her in again, his voice low and dark and soft.

“I know;” Jack says, because he does, deep down, despite what that little voice in the back of his head that sounds suspiciously like Snyder tells him when things don’t go his way, “I love you too. An’ I ain’t goin’ nowhere either."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The child that Jack is painting a portrait of Elliott Shepard Schieffelin (1905-1988). He was the first cousin once removed of Frederica Vanderbilt Webb Jones, who married Ralph Pulitzer in 1905.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, this story is fully written and I'm updating when editing is done. However, I do have something else in the works for this series: a story set in 1918 after Jack returns from serving in the war focusing on the aftermath of the war, how he relates with his now much-older children and Katherine after being away from them, their lives around that time, etc. Is that something you would be interested in? This sequel hasn't had huge amounts of engagement as of yet and I don't want to be spamming the tag with this series if you all aren't up for that kind of thing.

When Katherine writes, she likes to write at their kitchen table. Every morning after she’s cleared away the breakfast things and Jack has gone off to work, she sets her typewriter on the table and spreads out her notes. She’s a messy worker, likes to have everything spread out in front of her so that she can move it around and get it straight both in her head and in real life. Often, she opens the window, when it’s not so windy as to require her to use paperweights, and listens to the birds that visit the bird-feeders in their backyard.

The week after she sends the letter to the president, however, Katherine works in the living room, hunched over her typewriter where she’s propped it on the sill of the bay window, her eyes flicking up to scan the pavement for the postman, and then, in the afternoons, errand boys. The postman’s name, Katherine discovers after flinging open their front door in excitement three days in a row, is Frank. Frank is in his thirties, a widower with two small girls and bright blue eyes. Frank never brings a response from the president. Every day, her heart sinks a little bit more in her chest, and every day, when Jack asks about a response, she has to tell him no. Who was she to think that the president, the most important man in the country, would care one jot about them wanting to adopt? She’s a fool, nothing more or less, and she hates herself for stringing up Jack’s hopes only for them to be dashed again and again.

On Saturday, a full week since they lost Daniel, Jack suggests that they sit out on their front step to have breakfast and wait for Frank. It’s a nice day, bright and warm and sunny, and Katherine agrees, handing him two mugs of coffee and sending him to wait on the step while she plates up the bacon sandwiches. Those, at least, are some comfort, given what a luxury it is to have bacon for breakfast. Jack turned up with a stack of rashers wrapped in butcher’s paper when he got home from work the night before, the treat of her favourite breakfast to cheer her up after a week of daily disappointments. He’s too sweet, her husband. As she stands at the stove, determinedly not burning the bacon as its smell wafts up to greet her, the attempt to cheer her up almost works.

She is happy though, in a strange sort of way, as she hands Jack a bacon sandwich and settles herself down beside him on the step, stretching out her stocking feet in front of her and relishing the warmth of the summer sun seeping into her toes. She’s with Jack. It’s difficult to be unhappy when she’s with Jack.

“‘S really good, Ace.” Jack points at the sandwich.

Katherine preens a little bit. She’s got much better at cooking in the six years since their marriage (though, to be fair, it would have been difficult for her to get worse). Jack still takes on anything that could be construed as hard to prepare, but she can do the basics, and she hasn’t burned anything in three full weeks now. Jack, bless him, makes sure to praise her every successful meal. If it was anybody else, she’d think he was patronising her, but then again, she makes sure to congratulate him after every dinner and society event she ends up dragging him to, so they’re about even. But then Jack shoots her a cheeky grin and adds:

“Did Esther sneak it in through the kitchen window?”

“She did not, thank you very much.” Katherine scoffs, giving the back of his head a gentle, affectionate smack. “Besides, it’s pork.”

“Oh.” Jack wrinkles his nose. “Still funny though.”

“It’s a good job you’re pretty, that’s all I can say. Your humour isn’t going to get you anywhere in life.”

“Rude. I ain’t pretty, I’s _handsome_.”

“I think the fact that you’ve got a butterfly in your hair negates your point.”

“Wha-?” Jack swipes at his hair and the butterfly, a cabbage white, almost transparent suspended in a ray of sunshine, emerges from amongst his dark curls to land on Katherine’s shoulder.

The tickle of its six furred feet on her shoulder reminds her of summers spent at Chatwold, tearing through the long, fragrant meadow-grass toward the bay, her and Lucy wielding butterfly nets and glass jars that they swore up and down they wouldn’t break and yet always did. Those summers seem a world away, now, a time of pale cotton dresses and air that quivered with salt-seasoned heat. A sea that stretched out before them, the impossible blue of endless possibilities, one that they dreamed would take them out one day to see the chalets in France and Switzerland that Chatwold House itself was modelled after. Lucy had wanted so badly to travel – even towards the end, the winter that Katherine weathered inside reading book after book to her fevered sister, she had spoken of it. Dreams of Paris and Florence and Vienna, the soaring turrets and high-fashion silks and delicate croquembouche in corner cafes. Katherine’s own European tour had been tinged bitter by such memories, the taste of almonds on her tongue.

What Katherine wouldn’t give to have one of those glass jars right now, the ones that she and Lucy used to capture their prizes in. Perhaps, perhaps, if she was to catch this butterfly – not the way she used to, swooping and swiping her net upwards, stretching it toward the cobalt blue sky as if hoping that if she reached far enough she might capture a cloud – but quietly, gently in her hands, she might be able to keep this moment forever, folded in the flutter of its wings. That way, when the disappointments of this week come, and the weeks after it, she could get the jar out and breathe it in; the scent of freshly cooked bacon, the sun on her face, honeysuckle on the breeze, Jack’s arm around her, Jack himself. Is she not entitled to this? Is this moment of happiness not hers to live in forever, recompense for their losses, too many to count, now?

The glass jar shatters on Chatwold’s pebbled beach.

“Hullo, Missus Kelly!” Katherine jumps to her feet, rushing to meet the postman.

“Frank! Any post today?”

“There sure is.” Frank hands over a small stack of letters with a smile. Despite everything, rain or shine, the man seems unfailingly cheerful. He offers another gap-toothed smile as he touches his cap in greeting. “Mornin’, Mister Kelly.”

“Mornin’, Frank.” Jack nods. “How’s them girls o’ yours?”

“They’s mighty well, mighty well.” The smile that crosses the man’s face turns dreamy as it always does when he speaks about his daughters. It makes Jack’s stomach twist. “Runnin’ rings ‘round their poor old aunt, but that ain’t nothin’ new. All ways, I’d best be on with it.”

“Thank you!” Katherine calls after the man, still sorting through the post in search of likely looking envelopes. “Have a lovely day, Frank!”

“Frank’s a good sort, ain’t he?” Jack remarks as Katherine settles herself back down beside him. She hums non-committally, her nose buried in the first letter. He snorts. “Leastways I don’ hafta worry ‘bout you havin’ an affair wi’ the postman. I’s way handsomer than he is.”

“Damn right.” Katherine laughs, looking up at him and pressing a kiss to his cheek even though he hasn’t shaved yet this morning. “I don’t ever want anybody but you, Jack Kelly.”

Those words are enough to undo the twisting in Jack’s stomach. Katherine, for someone whose skill with a needle is so limited, knows exactly how to thread and unthread him, straightening out every knot he works himself into until the only tangle in his life is the tangle of her, the web of threads that bind them together.

“Oh.” She breathes, feeling her words snatched away on the summer breeze. “Oh, Jack.”

“What? What’s wrong?”

“We’ve been invited to tea. With the President.”

“ _What?_ ” Jack chokes on his coffee.

Katherine clears her throat and begins to read, trying to keep her fingers from shaking. “ _Dear Mr. Kelly,_

_In light of your recent correspondence, I wish to invite yourself and your wife for afternoon tea so that we might discuss your predicament more fully. Please attend my Oyster Bay residence on the afternoon of Sunday, 5 th of August, at 3pm. _

_Yours,_

_Theodore Roosevelt Jr._

_26 th President of the United States of America”_

He just gapes at her for a moment, then starts: “But that’s-“

“Tomorrow.” Katherine finishes.

“What the hell?” Jack snatches the letter from her hands, squinting down at it.

Katherine’s mind goes straight to the mud-stained hat that she threw on the floor the week before in her fury at the orphanage’s board. “I ruined my good hat. What on earth am I going to wear?”

…

After church the following morning, Katherine and Jack get on the train to Oyster Bay. They have to make a couple of changes, which leads to Katherine obsessively checking their tickets and her watch until Jack takes them off her and puts them in his wallet. He’s nervous enough about being in an enclosed train carriage himself, never mind with Katherine fretting about timing as well. It all turns out fine, in the end, (which Jack points out to his wife with an _I-told-you-so,_ earning him an elbow in the ribs) and it doesn’t really hit them until they see the house, shaded from public view by a line of weeping trees. The lawn is bigger than most of the parks that Jack has been in, sloping up to a sprawling mansion of red brick, the freshly painted shutters gleaming in the afternoon sunlight. They’re having afternoon tea with the _President._

Up ahead, there is a white-painted cast iron table and chairs set that has been put out on the veranda. Roses climb up the pillars that support the roof that juts out to shade them, winding their way around and blooming bright and vibrant against the house. Katherine wishes she could take a cutting of them for the little window-box that her and Jack are trying (in vain, thus far) to cultivate. A few of the chairs are occupied, so they head there.

Once they come within a few yards of the veranda, a rotund man rises from one of the chairs and booms out: “Mr. Kelly! Mrs. Kelly! What a pleasure to see you, it has been too long.”

Roosevelt, Jack thinks, is one of those short men who make up their lack of height in personality and exuberance. He likes to think that he has a firm handshake himself, but shaking hands with this particular president is enough to make him think better of it, given how Roosevelt nearly takes his arm off with the vigour of it.

“An’ you, sir.” Jack nods.

“Mr. President.” Katherine offers the man her best high-society smile, a little more genuine feeling behind it than usual. “Congratulations on your re-election.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Kelly.” Roosevelt starts a little when he turns to face Katherine, clearly recognising her, before his face softens back into an easy smile with something of mischief about it. “I shouldn’t have thought your father would be overly congratulatory.”

“I don’t imagine he would.” The corner of Katherine’s mouth quirks a little in amusement. “Lucky, then, that my husband voted in your favour to cancel out my father’s vote. I hope that soon I will be able to vote for you myself.”

“And will that not be a fine day, Mrs. Kelly, when the women of our nation have the right to vote?” Roosevelt claps her on the back, practically beaming, and Katherine is suddenly grateful for Jack’s arm around her that keeps her from pitching forward. Here, she thinks, is a man who does not know his own strength. So long as that strength doesn’t go towards blaming her for her father’s various indiscretions, though, she won’t be complaining. “Perhaps I shall convince Congress, one of these days. Please, come and have a seat.”

Roosevelt shows them to the table, at which point Jack and Katherine’s mouths simultaneously drop open. Katherine manages to hide it behind a cough, but has to elbow Jack to get him to stop staring. To his credit, he recovers rather quickly, dutifully pulling out her chair for her as is expected, before seating himself. Across the table, laden with more good things to eat than Jack has ever seen in his life; jam and cream scones, triangular sandwiches, pitchers of iced tea and lemonade, cakes the likes of which he’s never seen but make his palms and tongue feel itchy for them; is the entire board of the orphanage. All three reverends and both women. And they all look like they’re about to have heart attacks.

“I believe you have met the members of the board of _The Howard Mission and Home for Little Wanderers._ ” Roosevelt remarks, casual as anything whilst reaching for a cucumber sandwich.

Katherine looks over at Jack, catches sight of the slow grin spreading across his face, and smiles herself, selecting a scone with dainty fingers. “Indeed, we are intimately familiar with them.” She nods to the flabbergasted company. “Good afternoon.”

Jack wonders whether this whole situation will be the final straw for the elderly Reverend Plumb. Whilst he doesn’t wish death on the guy (mainly because he’s pretty sure that’s a sin and not out of any real affection, but still), being the cause of the aneurysm that polishes him off _would_ be rather satisfying. The man is certainly grey-faced enough, almost corpse-like.

“We had no idea, Mr. Kelly,” the reverend finally chokes out, “that you were affiliated with the president.”

“Oh, we go way back.” Jack grins, stretching out his legs beneath the table and leaning back in his seat, smug and relaxed. “Shared many a pleasant carriage ride, ain’t we, Mista President?”

“Indeed we have, Mr. Kelly, indeed we have.” Roosevelt chortles. “We were just discussing – thank you, Martha –“ the president pauses, smiling at the young maid who places another jug of ice-water on the table, “a recent interview that I did with a lovely journalist from the _Ladies Home Journal_ about the proper treatment of neglected children and the prevention of them being exploited by the juvenile court system.”

“How wonderful that you are speaking out about that, sir.” Katherine smiles, taking a sip of her lemonade. “It is an issue you have long concerned yourself with, I recall?”

“Since 1899, I believe.” Roosevelt, a man of good humour, as attested by all who knew him, looks as if he might explode with laughter at any moment. His red-facedness, Katherine suspects, has little to do with the sweltering heat. “I had thought, perhaps, to expose some of the… _unfortunate practices_ of certain institutions in the article, a wake-up call, if you will, and thought I might consult the board on such matters. What say you, Mr. Kelly?”

“That sounds like a good idea, sir. I thinks the board will have a lot to say ‘bout unfortunate practices. Perhaps a comment on the distribution o’ adoption certificates.”

“Such practice is indeed important.” Mrs. Atkins chimes in hurriedly, her lips pressed tightly together and wearing the expression of one who has just been forced to swallow a prune. “As one of the trust’s primary benefactors, it is of the utmost importance to us to ensure that the correct adoptive parents are issued with certificates. I believe you recently applied for a certificate, Mr. Kelly?”

Jack winks at her. Oh, but he’s enjoying this. “You’s got a sharp memory, Mrs. Atkins.”

The woman turns her icy gaze on Plumb. “I believe that we should be able to speed the process along for you, don’t you, Reverend?”

“Indeed, madam.” The reverend hisses from between gritted teeth, forcing his mouth into something vaguely resembling a smile. “We would be _delighted_ to issue a certificate and allow you to pick up your child as soon as this Wednesday, wouldn’t we ladies, gentlemen?”

Four heads give begrudging nods of assent.

“How wonderful.” Katherine purses her lips, triumphant. “Thank you, Mr. President, for consulting us in this matter.”

Upon their dismissal from the tea-table, noticeably later than the board members’ dismissal, one might add, Roosevelt walks them to the bottom of the lawn and shakes Jack’s hand vigorously. He has done so twice before, yet Jack doesn’t think that he’ll ever get used to the fact that he’s shaking hands with a gover- no, a _president_.

“Thank you for your company.”

“Thank _you_ for your assistance, sir.” Katherine clasps the hand that has recently relinquished her husband’s in both of hers. “We are both incredibly grateful.”

“Well, what kind of man would I be if I didn’t help out an old friend? What was it I told you, Mr. Kelly? Keep your eyes on the stars-“

“An’ your feet on the ground, sir.” Jack grins.

“That’s right. I am glad to see you have taken the advice to heart. I will ask my wife to issue an invitation to dinner when we are next in residence here.” Roosevelt nods, touching the wide brim of his hat. “I should like you to meet my daughter, Alice, Mrs. Kelly. I do believe the two of you would get along rather well.”

Given that Katherine read an article about Roosevelt’s daughter last year that included her jumping into a pool fully clothed purely to scandalise those around her, Katherine does think they’ll get along rather well.

…

The next two days pass in a whirlwind of preparations. Though Jack has managed to get a week and a half off work to let Daniel settle in, he’s working right up until the Wednesday, which leaves Katherine with everything to sort out in the house. She is honestly completely floored at the number of sharp, heavy, or electrical objects that are currently situated below waist level and that a child could potentially injure themselves on. She is in the middle of repositioning their armchair to cover up the electrical socket in the living room when there is a knock at the door.

Swiping her forearm over her forehead to sweep the sweat and wisps of hair from her eyes, Katherine opens the door to her mother, accompanied by Constance and Edith.

“Mother?” Katherine blinks.

“Good morning, Katherine.” Kate Pulitzer, imperious as ever in a deep purple skirt-suit, sweeps inside without invitation, Constance and Edith following behind to give Katherine a hug in greeting. “We are organising a little event for Frederica this Thursday, getting ready for the baby coming, you know, and I was wondering-“

“I’m afraid I won’t be able to attend.” Katherine replies, shutting the door behind them and resisting the urge to roll her eyes.

Ever since Ralph’s new wife, Frederica, got pregnant, it’s all her mother has been able to talk about. Katherine has cried into Jack’s shoulder more times than she’d care to admit in fits of jealousy at the woman’s fertility and anger at her parents for seemingly forgetting that their _real_ first grandchild lies in a cemetery just a few miles away. Still, despite being a little snobbish (and the woman is a Vanderbilt, so it’s hardly like she can help it) Frederica is an alright sort of girl. Katherine is looking forward to meeting her niece or nephew, she honestly is. It’s just that she’d rather not listen to her mother waxing poetic about how perfect her _first_ (actually second) grandchild is going to be.

“Why not?” Kate Pulitzer blinks. “You are no longer working.”

Katherine forces herself to swallow down a retort about her career as an author being work even though it is done from home. It’s not something her mother will ever understand, so it isn’t worth bothering. Edith throws her a sympathetic look from over their mother’s shoulder.

“Jack and I told you that we were thinking of adopting-“

“Oh, Katherine,” her mother sighs, “this, again?”

“And we finally got our son.” Katherine bites out. “All of the guides I’ve read suggest a cocooning period where he spends the first week or so just getting used to us. Hence, I will not be able to come on Thursday.”

“You have actually adopted him?” Her mother starts, mouth dropping open, but is all but drowned out by Constance and Edith, who rush forward to hug her.

“When is the cocooning period up?” Edith asks as Constance simultaneously demands: “When can we meet him?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Historical notes: 
> 
> 1\. Chatwold was Pulitzer’s residence in Maine, a gorgeous house just off the bay that he purchased in 1893. It had room for him to bring his secretaries with him, so he didn’t even have to stop working – typical Joe Pulitzer. It was in that house which Lucille Irma Pulitzer, Katherine’s older sister by two years, passed away in 1897. 
> 
> 2\. From presidential orders of August 1906, we know that Roosevelt was, at that time, at his summer residence in Oyster Bay, New York, relaxing with his family. The first train to Oyster Bay ran in 1889, so Jack and Katherine could have got there via train. 
> 
> 3\. I know it’s honestly a bit unrealistic that Roosevelt would invite them to tea, but despite his controversies, he was actually a pretty good guy who advocated social aid for the disadvantaged and women’s suffrage (hence Katherine’s comment), so I feel like he’d really want to help the Kellys out.
> 
> 4\. The article in the Ladies Home Journal is real and can be found [here.](https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015011447888&view=1up&seq=849)
> 
> 5\. I LOVE Alice Roosevelt. She cared not one whit for what people thought of her and apparently drove Teddy crazy as she did all sorts of taboo things like smoke cigarettes in public, marry someone that her father wasn’t a fan of, and attend wild parties. The newspaper article that Katherine refers to is real (Alice genuinely did jump into a pool fully clothed just to cause scandal – her and Katherine would get on SO well) and you can find it [here.](https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=6hEbAAAAIBAJ&sjid=sUgEAAAAIBAJ&pg=3988%2C743042)
> 
> 6\. I can’t work out whether a cocooning period is period accurate, but it IS good practice for bringing home an adopted child. Ideally, it should be one month of limited contact with anybody but adoptive parents (outside of school, etc. for older children) for every year that the child has been in social care. Because this is the past, and this probably wasn’t widely understood, I’ve made the executive decision that Jack and Katherine will have a week of cocooning/bonding before outsiders come in.


	6. Chapter 6

Katherine holds Jack’s hand so tight as they walk toward the orphanage on Wednesday that Jack thinks that she might just cut off his circulation entirely. He’s not exactly complaining, though, the gold wedding band on her finger comforting and warm against his palm, a grounding force in this whirlwind they’ve somehow ended up in. When the door to the orphanage opens, it’s a maid who answers the door.

“Good morning. We’re the Kellys, here to pick up Daniel?” Katherine smiles at the woman.

The maid nods, telling them to wait as she disappears through one of the doors. She reappears moments later, holding a manilla folder in one hand and Daniel’s grubby little paw in the other, leading him towards the door.

“Here you go, ma’am.” The maid hands over the folder to Katherine. A peek inside is enough to make her heart sing. This is it. This is the certificate. He’s _theirs._ The maid nudges Daniel forward and he takes a wobbly step out of the door and onto the front step. “This is Daniel, and Reverend Plumb said to tell you that you need to get the certificate signed by a judge to have it be official, but that it’s all filled out for you. He says he’s very sorry but is indisposed to deal with you today.”

Jack bites his lip, trying to clamp down on his amusement, and shoots Katherine a wink. “What a shame. We was lookin’ forward to seein’ him, wasn’t we, Ace?”

The maid frowns, clearly completely lost as to why anybody would have a desire to see Reverend Plumb. “I’m sorry, sir. Have a nice day.”

And then she shuts the door. Leaving them on the front step.

Katherine’s mouth drops open, looking between the folder and Daniel, who has sat down on the front step to wait, surprisingly patient. She turns and mouths _is that it?_ Jack just shrugs. He must admit, he had been expecting something more, not entirely certain that the reverend would relinquish Daniel so easily, despite their… friends in high places. But he’s not going to complain. They have their son. That’s all that matters. So, he doesn’t come with anything but the patched-up clothes on his back and the scuffed boots on his feet. Jack was like that once. That’s something that he can work with.

Jack crouches down in front of the child, looking straight into wide brown eyes. There’s no fear there, surprisingly, just apathy. The birthmark on his cheek is more red than the last time they saw him, or maybe it’s just the light, but it seems angrier somehow.

“Hey, kid. I’s your new daddy, an’ this,” Jack reaches for Katherine’s hand and tugs her down to their level, “is your mommy.”

Daniel turns to look at Katherine, his gaze dark and serious. There’s something about the set of his mouth or the flare of his nostrils that makes him look as though he’s concentrating very, very hard. When he finally speaks, it’s just one word, a little bit uncertain. “Snap?”

Katherine inhales, a sharp little thing accompanied by a watery smile. _He remembers._

“‘S right, Danny-boy. We’s goin’ to take you home wi’ us, okay?”

Daniel looks back at Jack, and tilts his head to the side, curious and bird-like. He lifts his arms slightly. “Up?”

Jack nods, turning to Katherine who asks: “Do you want to carry the certificate or the child?”

“Child. I’ll only lose the certificate.”

A smile tugs at the corner of Katherine’s mouth. “I’ll be more upset if you lose our son.”

 _Our son._ The two of them grin at each other, knowing that they must look ridiculous and far past caring. Finally true. Their son. He’s theirs. Forever. They’ve even got the certificate to prove it.

“C’mon, then.” Jack reaches out and hoists Daniel up, swinging him up to sit on his shoulders. “You ride home up on my shoulders, yeah?”

Katherine laughs a little at the face that Daniel pulls, clearly unused to being up so high, but he gets used to it quickly. The avenue is tree-lined, with the lurid green leaves of beech trees overhanging the pavement. Set alight by the sun shining through them, Daniel reaches up tiny, mesmerised hands, grabbing for the leaves above. Jack adjusts his grip on the boy’s legs as Katherine giggles, looking up at the child stretching to reach. After a few vain attempts, Daniel finally grabs a handful of leaves from a lower hanging branch.

“He’s got some, now.” Katherine whispers to Jack, watching how their son is going to react.

At first, Daniel just stares at the bunch of leaves he’s clutched in his hands as if he can’t quite believe that they’re real, that he could reach up into the sky and pluck them. Then, with a big smile, he dumps them unceremoniously over Jack’s head. Jack laughs, shaking his head a little to get rid of the worst of them as Daniel joins him in peals of inexplicable laughter. There’s something about the helplessness of the boy’s giggles that sets Katherine off as well, especially when she gets to be the one to tell her husband that a single leaf has retained its spot, a tiny hat on the top of his head.

“Hey, Ace,” Jack only laughs in response, “does it look like one o’ those things what Davey wears in front o’ Miriam’s parents?”

“A kippah?” Katherine snorts, nuzzling her face into the crook of his elbow as he grips Daniel’s ankle a little tighter, anchoring him on his shoulders. “No, my love, you just look like a man with a leaf on his head.”

“When you’s bigger,” Jack looks up, despite being unable to see his son from this angle, “you’s goin’ to have to tell your mommy off for bullyin’ me.”

It’s only when they finally get home that Jack and Katherine realise that none of the many, many books that Katherine checked out of the library about adoption and caring for children had any advice about how to actually make an adopted child feel at home. Realistically, neither of them have any clue about what the boy’s routine is like, if he’s even had one, or what they’re supposed to do. But it _is_ early afternoon, and Daniel _is_ yawning, so Katherine suggests that Jack take him up to his room while she finds a clean diaper and vest to put him in for a nap.

Daniel climbs the stairs on his own, hefting himself up each one on hands and knees, emerging victorious at the top and climbing to his wobbly feet. Jack takes hold of the boy’s hand, slightly sweaty from the summer heat, and walks him through to the little bedroom. Daniel immediately rushes over to the mural on the wall, jabbing his finger at the lion.

“Raaa!”

“‘S right!” Jack grins, getting down on the floor beside him. “Lion says roar, good job, kid.” Daniel beams, clapping his little hands together. Jack points to the monkey just above Daniel’s head. “An’ this is the monkey. Says ooh-ooh ah-ah!”

Daniel laughs so hard at that that he falls right over, bumping onto his bottom. Jack worries for a moment that he was supposed to catch the kid, but Daniel just keeps laughing, so he does the monkey impression again for good measure. Casting around for another animal, he points to the giraffe.

“An’…” he stops, considering, then turns towards the stairs that his wife is now wandering up, “Kath?”

“Yes, my love?” She appears in the doorway and Daniel whirls around to look at her.

“What does a giraffe say?”

“It says _I can smell that diaper from up here_.” Katherine scoops up Daniel and presses a kiss to his cheek. “Come on, little man, let’s get you changed.”

Daniel goes down for his nap, sleeps for two hours, then wakes up. He doesn’t cry, just runs his fingers up and down the bars of his crib, giggling at the sound that it makes, until Katherine and Jack realise that he’s awake. He has a snack, then sits on the living-room floor making quiet vroom-vroom noises with a little wooden motorcar, then sits on Katherine’s lap to read a book, then has his dinner at the table with them, devouring every mouthful, splashes in his bath, and goes down to bed with no complaints. He doesn’t cry once. In the books that Katherine has read, they all say that it’s completely normal for an eighteen-month-old to wake several times a night and need coaxing back to sleep. But from the time that Katherine puts the boy down at seven and the time they go to bed at eleven, they haven’t heard so much as a peep out of him.

Honestly, the lack of normal child behaviours – crying, knocking things over, tantrums – is starting to disturb them both. Either they just adopted the second coming of Christ, or something is seriously wrong. It’s Katherine who broaches it, as Jack slides into bed beside her.

“Do you think I should go and check on him?” She frets, worrying her bottom lip between her teeth. “He’s been so quiet – maybe he’s ill? Is this what people mean about babies being lethargic?”

“Kath, try not to worry ‘bout it.” Jack sighs, wrapping his arms around her and pulling her into his chest, carding his fingers through her hair in the way that almost always manages to soothe her. “I’s sure he’ll be a little horror tomorrow.”

Still, she just shifts uncomfortably. “Jack-“

“Look, sweetheart, he’s sleepin’ well ‘cos they’ll have made them, at the orphanage.” Her husband sighs again. Jack fixes his eyes over her shoulder at the Santa Fe skyline on their wall and tries not to think about the words that he’s saying. “They don’ get up to tend to kids in the night; they either lets them scream ‘til they realise there ain’t nobody comin’, or they smacks them ‘til they don’ do it no more.”

Katherine pulls away, wide-eyed. “That’s awful.”

“Yeah, but it’s true. This’ll be the first time Daniel’s ever had attention jus’ on him. He ain’t never been looked after before. Once he realises that we ain’t goin’ nowhere, he’ll start actin’ normal. I promise.”

Jack doesn’t make promises lightly. Amongst the newsies, a promise is something sacred, more, even, than a spitshake. A promise is a boy’s badge of honour, to break it is to be outcast. Jack hasn’t sold a newspaper in almost seven years, now, but she knows that he still holds to it. It’s something ingrained in him, something to do with his father, she thinks, from the little things he says in their quietest moments that she has managed to piece together. It’s how she knows that he’ll always love her. Because he’s promised.

“How are you so good at understanding him?” She sighs, nuzzling a bit closer to him.

The tension drains from her muscles as his fingers trace slow, careful circles on back, the way that one might dust off expensive china. “‘Cos I _was_ him, love.”

And if that doesn’t just break her heart entirely. She can’t bear it, the idea of Jack being so hurt, the idea of Daniel being so hurt. She cries over thoughts of little Jack, sometimes, the thought of him scared and cold and hungry, her heart aching as it begs to take his pain away. She hopes that they’ve caught Daniel early enough that she won’t need to cry over him in that way, though she’s barely holding the tears in as it is.

“I’m so glad you managed to get this time off work. It must be so scary for him, being carted off by adults he barely knows.”

“We ain’t goin’ to be adults he barely knows, though.” Jack tugs her a little bit closer, peppering kisses in her hair. “We’s his folks, now.”

…

True to form, the next morning, Daniel stays in his crib, gurgling quietly to himself until Katherine goes in to get him. When she sweeps open the curtains, his little face lights up and he struggles to his feet, hauling himself up by the railings of his crib and reaching up for her.

“Hey, sweetie. How’d you sleep?”

Daniel replies with a stream of unintelligible chatter, nuzzling into the side of Katherine’s neck and stuffing his fingers in his mouth.

From the doorway, Jack watches, smiling at the sight of his wife and his child silhouetted against the bright sunshine of the world outside. The sunlight casts Katherine as the angel he’s always known her as, ethereal in white cotton thrown transparent in the golden light, her undone hair a halo as she cradles their son against her. He’s never felt so lucky in all his life. There’s something sacred in the domesticity of it, the clean smell of sweat and linen and baby powder. Katherine turns around, still holding Daniel close, and spots him in the doorway. She smiles, reaching out her hand and he can’t help it, he takes it, even though Jack feels as though he is stepping inside a painting he isn’t worthy to so much as look at.

He wraps them both up in himself, silently praying his thanks for the things that he never thought he would be grateful for, the years of street fights and hard work, because they have made his arms strong and his hands hard and he can wrap up his wife and child in them and never let them go.

Eventually, however, Daniel starts to squirm and Katherine takes him downstairs to start on breakfast while Jack shaves. Watching them go down the stairs in the reflection of the bathroom mirror, Katherine going backwards as Daniel sits and bumps down every step, Jack feels as though some bird has taken flight inside his chest. He shaves in record time, nicking himself twice as he goes in a way he hasn’t done since he was a teenager, just so that he can rejoin them as soon as possible.

“Could you do him another slice of toast please?” Katherine asks as Jack wanders into the kitchen, fiddling with his suspenders. Dropping a quick kiss on her lips, he goes over to the kitchen counter and casts about for the breadknife.

Glancing over his shoulder to where Daniel is inhaling toast soldiers at a frankly alarming rate he asks: “How many has he had?”

“Four.” Katherine laughs, looking back at him. “I didn’t think he’d have such an appetite-“

“Sweetheart,” Jack sighs, setting the breadknife down, “we can’t give him any more toast.”

She frowns. “But he’s still hungry-“

“He’ll eat until he’s sick, Kath. ‘S what happens when kids ain’t fed proper. They’ll eat whatever’s around in case they don’ eat again for days.”

Slowly, Katherine looks back at their son, who is now wiping his fingers around the rim of his now-empty little plate, catching up every stray drop of melted butter to suck off his fingers.

“But… he’ll stop when he gets full, won’t he?”

“No. Don’t you remember how Carl threw up our second Christmas here? Kids don’t know when to stop.”

Katherine remembers that particular incident all too well. The large box of fancy chocolates gifted to them by her parents had been… _discovered_ by little Carl – who, really, Jack had argued, wasn’t little enough, at age ten, to be excused his misbehaviour. It had led to a pretty substantial clean-up operation and Jack taking the kid to task in front of all of the other newsies. Carl had turned up on their doorstep two days later with two little chocolates from a shop down the road in recompense. Jack had sent the kid back to the lodgehouse with three days worth of leftover food for him and the boys. Those two tiny chocolates had tasted better, in the Kellys’ opinion, than the entire box would have done, given what it must have cost Carl to get them.

“Uh!” Daniel reaches toward Jack, who has one hand still resting on the loaf of bread, making grabby hands.

“I hear you, an’ I know I’s bein’ mean, but ‘s for your own good.” Jack sighs, grabbing a dishcloth to wipe off the little fingers that are sticky with butter before picking up his son.

Katherine coughs. She desperately doesn’t want to think about any of this. The thought of Daniel going so hungry as to make this what he resorts to, even in what is now his own home, is enough to turn her stomach. She will not think about it. There is no use dwelling on it; they can’t undo the past. Instead, she glances up to the window, the summer sun catching on the wings of the birds that have congregated in their backyard to worship at the altar of the bird-feeders.

“It’s a beautiful day.” She clears her throat and the breakfast plates, taking them over to the sink to wash away their troubles. “Shall we take him to the park? I think there was a little ball in the bag of toys that Miriam and I got.”

“Whaddaya think, Daniel?” Jack hoists the boy a little higher on his hip. “Mommy says let’s go to the park. Get you started as a pitcher nice an’ early, eh?”

Katherine laughs, drying her hands off on a towel and accepting their son from her husband. “Bit early to be bringing him into the baseball team, Jack.”

“Never too early. I’ll go an’ get him some clothes, yeah?”

“No! No!” Daniel yells as Jack makes his way out of the kitchen, squirming and writhing in Katherine’s arms until she lets him down. He sets off at the nearest thing that an eighteen-month-old can get to a run, catching up to his father and throwing his arms around Jack’s leg. “No.” The boy mumbles, his plea muffled in the fabric of Jack’s trouser leg.

Jack reaches down to pry the boy off. “I jus’ need to get you some clothes, little fella. You can’t go out wi’out trousers.”

“No!” Daniel wails, only clutching tighter.

Katherine watches all of this from the kitchen doorway, biting at her lip. She supposes she shouldn’t be surprised; Jack always was the one out of the two of them who had a way with children. She tries her best, of course, but, as so often seems to happen to her, her desire for the affection of others seems to always outweigh the other person’s capacity to give it. There are more people in her life, now, that seem able to match her – Jack was the first, of course, and in his wake came others. But she doesn’t think she can bear it if the one person that she’s wanted for so long can’t love her as much as he loves his father.

“Do you think I haven’t made him feel safe enough?”

“Sweetheart, you’s his favourite person.” Jack glances up from trying extract his leg from Daniel’s grip, his face softening when he reads her expression, skimming over the words of hurt printed across her face. “He don’ like me more, he’s jus’ havin’ them today.”

Daniel whimpers as Jack finally pries his arms away and crouches down to talk to him. “Now, Daniel. I’s goin’ to go get you some clothes, an’ you need to stay wi’ Mommy.”

“No.” Daniel stamps his foot, the gesture of defiance almost comical.

“I’ll just get them.”

Katherine sweeps past them in the hallway, her skirt brushing against her boys as she slips past and up the stairs. By the time Jack has clocked what is going on and made to call after her, she’s already upstairs.

“Kath-“ he drops his head with a heavy, hurting sigh, and, with his hands still clasped, gentle and firm, around Daniel’s arms, looks at his son, “you’s goin’ to drive us up the wall, kid.”

Daniel cocks his head to the side again, strangely akin to the little robin that perches each morning on their backyard wall to sing its song. “Up?”

“Yeah.” Jack picks him up, transferring the both of them to the living room. “Up the bloody wall.”


End file.
